James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

46 comments:

I once was sketching a bowling green in Bakewell when a woman approached me and snatched the sketchbook out of my hand, "to have a proper look". I was a bit miffed with that and rather lost the urge to carry on drawing.

Love these!Experienced many of them...would have to add: Little kids keep putting fingers into paint.My favorite is the donkey - aren't they something? It takes a pretty hard-hearted painter to shoo away a tenderly affectionate donkey.

I should have explained that the spitting was unintentional. The tourists in Death Valley didn't know Jeanette and I were sitting in the only patch of shade down below the overlook. When we looked up, they said, "Goldarn, there's a couple artists down there."

I can't explain it buy my biggest gamestopper is the age-old question, "Ooh, what's that a drawing of?" after a stranger looks at your sketchbook. I know it's meant as a polite conversation starter but it just takes the wind out of my sails. Especially if you happen to be sitting under a gigantic bridge, drawing the gigantic bridge and somebody asks, "What is that?"

Usually I smile politely and say, "Ducks" or "The sunset" or some other imagery that is not at all what I'm drawing.

I have to add, my showstopper is typically when someone walks up and asks with all sincerity, "Are you drawing that?" It's hard to grasp the unknown, but this is the one situation that makes me question the meaning of it all...

Tom, no, I would lose interest in the subject if I had to work from the photo. To tell you the truth, I kind of enjoy the low-level chaos that I face outdoors or in a busy pub, as long as it doesn't ratchet up to Gamestopper level.

I haven't really been field painting (hoping to try this weekend) but I sketch on the DC Metro on my commute to and from work just about everyday.

The most "gamestoppers" I get is if I have to hang on to the rail. (unless i learn to draw and hold my sketchbook with one hand :op) or if the sketch subject doesn't like being sketched and gives me dirty DC looks I usually oblige and choose a different subject. Most of the time people are sleeping though and make for some good subjects for sketching.

Even though there is not a lot variety in the poses there're are so many different kind people to choose from its awesome.

I guess the worst thing happening to me had to do with going to Italy as part of a school group. They'd take us to the most stupendous places, then shuffle us back up the road or in the bus, just a couple minutes into my sketching, and I didn't have a camera back then. The worst was going to Assisi, the church is up on a cliff, and a restaurant nearby sits right on the cliff itself. The view was incredible, all of Italy, with an incredible sun and rays of light filtering down. And the Prof didn't want to eat there because it was too expensive (as in a euro or two more per plate than the other place). She refused my offer to pay for everyone, and wouldn't let me go on my own... She said I could come back some other day (you'd think an art history prof would understand the difficulty in getting the same weather/light). I've never been back. Maybe in another ten years.....The lesson I learned is, when traveling/painting through Europe, do it alone.

My personal favorite game stoppers are: falling a sleep in the sun and losing my great light, having a horse decide my hair hair is straw and trying to eat it, having the boulder that I was sitting on suddenly decide to slide downhill (nothing was damaged but my pride), dropping my portable watercolor box overboard and watching it sink and last, but not least, remembering everything for a nice day of painting outside BUT forgetting the paper.

I was about to do a workshop demo of a quaint little Victorian house when a septic pumper truck pulled up and parked directly in front of my subject. I continued...and so did the pumper. No sooner than I finished my demo, than the pumper truck finished its work, too. Gamestopper? Nah.

A pickup truck drove up and parked in front of the tree I was painting. A guy got out of the truck, pulled a chain saw out of the back of it and proceeded to cut down the tree. I couldn't believe it was really happening- did someone pay him to do that? ... I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard.

Once in Boston, I was interrupted at night by a large, mentally-handicapped man, who kept shaking my hand, and then started asking if I was his friend. I said, yeah, and next thing I know, he's asking, "Are you my girlfriend? Are you my girlfriend?" So I got the hell out.

One night I decided to draw a landscape for a girl I liked, and didn't stop even though I was eaten alive by mosquitos. Only my hands were exposed (planning) but by the end I counted over 40 bites on each hand. In the end... the girl lost it, and then started dating some bass guitarist...

My girlfriend, her best friend and I made a brief visit to Japan last year and, all being creatives, managed a few plein air sessions.

One such location was Miyajima where there is a famous shrine gate whose foundations are underwater at high tide. We were there approaching sunset, with high tide reflecting the colours of the darkening sky and the brightly artificially illuminated Torii. Perfect. The sightseers out snapping pics of the iconic landmark started taking just as many photos of us, until another local attraction started to interfere.

Tame deer came up and one took a specific liking to my girlfriends moleskine sketchbook, trying to eat it right out from under her brush. She got decidedly irate when she could not startle the tame animal, though the tourists around us were more easily disturbed. Together we managed to herd the beast away, though the light was failing fast and the moment had passed.

In my opinion the memory is better with the deers hijinks, but my girlfriend surely feels differently.

Hilarious post and I find the donkey incident charming too.I was once attacked by geese. And once my subject thought drawing him was my way of trying to ask him out. I just thought he had an interestingly shaped head but how do you tell him that? I certainly prefer sketching unaware people.

Got knocked to the wet ground by a juiced up electric fence. Big bulls in the lot so it was cranked.

Looked at the tree in the corner of the field and saw the top strand of barbed wire nailed in, so I thought it was safe. Little did I know the middle strand was hot. As I lifted the top strand and was ducking under, I pressed down on the middle strand with my left hand. POW! Ended up in the mud. Luckily not laying on the fence.

Early one morning, I set up my Open Box M and unrolled my brush holder on a nearby log, anticipating the golden light that would give form to the wooded path that stretched out in front of me.

With the sun's light came its heat and what I assumed to be biting flies. I absentmindedly swatted them, all attention on my painting. Then WHAM! One bit me on my back! Through my shirt! It really hurt!

I glanced over my shoulder, toward the log and GHEEAHGGGGG!! -- a swarm of yellow jackets (who were none too happy about having my brush holder spread out over their nest)! In one panicked movement, I grabbed my painting rig in one hand and made a grab for my brush holder as I bolted away.

If you've ever seen somebody pull the table cloth cleanly out from under a fully set table -- leaving the dishes, silverware and glasses in place, then you can picture what happened to my brushes -- most of them stayed perfectly in place in the middle of the log as I tugged away the brush holder. Looking back over my shoulder as I sprinted down the path, I could see the brushes' ferrules, sparkling in the sun as angry yellow jackets swirled around them.

Perfect time to tell my story. I was sketching some hyenas at a zoo and the border was pretty small. I sketched them for a long while and thought it would be cool, (warning this is stupid) to reach in and have the hyena leave its mark on my sketchbook... Kinda like when Fred Flintstone clocks in at his work. Well it didnt go that nice....bye bye sketchbook. I think I had too much sun that day.....

I hiked about 3 miles into a national park, got all set up, placed the panel on the easel, set up the stool, opened the paintbox and realized I didn't have Titanium White or any other white for that matter!! I still ended up completing the oil painting. Not having white made me think about how much I always used it. This forced me to rethink how I painted. The painting is actually one of my favorite ones that I've done.

Seems people have been having problems like this for a long time: Near the beginning of Goethe's travelogue Italian Journey, he sits down to sketch the ruins of an old fort, and the local villagers assume he must be a spy and haul him off to the police!

Great post. I have had 10 out of your 25 "incidents" happen to me too while trying to paint outdoors. My favorite and funniest incident was when I was trying to paint a street scene at the corner of 29th and 3rd in NYC, when a woman pulled up and parked her car at the parking meter right in front of me. She jumps out of her car, (she is in a real big rush) runs over to me, and forces a handful of quarters into my hand while yelling, "You'll be here for a while. Feed my meter while I'm gone"! And runs away. Well, I know that I didn't paint the rest of that morning, but I don't remember if it was because I was laughing too hard, or because I was too busy feeding quarters into the parking meter all day.

I've looked over your paint box and can't find what you're missing... but more than that I must say it's comforting to know that even an artist of your caliber still runs to into these kinds of problems.